J.D. Energy: How rental automobile firms rank in buyer satisfaction

The pandemic tore into automobile rental firms like a hungry seven-year-old right into a bowl of mac and cheese. At first, constrained car provide meant no vehicles had been out there, however that drawback has largely handed. Nonetheless, based on J.D. Energy’s 2022 North America Rental Automobile Satisfaction Examine, the trade faces different buyer satisfaction woes. The research contains responses from 8,445 enterprise and leisure vacationers who rented a automobile at an airport location between August 2021 and August 2022.

Throughout the research, survey respondents quoted a mean per-day rental worth of $90, a far cry from the price range hatchbacks and Nissan Altimas many people lease. The first buyer criticism with rental automobile firms is their pricing, which the group says is up 14 p.c this yr.

Value has additionally change into probably the most vital issue affecting buyer satisfaction, and out of doors results of inflation and excessive gasoline costs are making it worse. The businesses do have an out, nevertheless, with good service. J.D. Energy’s managing director of journey, hospitality, and retail famous that “if rental vehicles need to offset the affect of those price will increase on buyer satisfaction and their model loyalty, they’re going to must work exhausting to ship outsized worth by ramping up service.”

— Enterprise took the highest spot within the research for the second yr in a row with a rating of 865.

— Nationwide got here in second with a rating of 859.

— Alamo got here in third at 837.

J.D. Energy discovered that the typical rating for the trade total is 829, down one level from 2021 and down 12 factors from 2020. Beneath the typical, Avis landed at 816, Greenback at 799, Finances at 788, and Thrifty at 780.